Tesla is set to file a lawsuit in court next week over the role its Autopilot system played in a fatal 2018 crash, and it wants Apple to testify in its defense.
Tesla wants to prove that Apple engineer Wei “Walter” Huang was talking on his phone when his Self-Driving Model X crashed into a safety barrier along U.S. Highway 101 in Mountain View, California, in 2018 Play video games on. Huang’s family is suing Tesla for wrongful death and claims Tesla is secretly working with Apple to assist in its defense.
In a pretrial motion filed this week, attorneys representing Huang’s family accused Apple of “engaging in secret discovery ‘workarounds’ to help support Tesla’s defense in the pending case.”
Huang’s family accuses Apple of “engagement in secretly discovering ‘workarounds’ to help support Tesla”
In its preliminary investigation, the NTSB found that the top app on Huang’s phone at the time of the crash was a video game – “a world-building strategy game with multiplayer features.” But investigators couldn’t determine whether he was playing the game when his Model X crashed into a concrete divider.
“The log data is not specific enough to determine whether the Tesla driver was holding his cellphone at the time of the crash,” the NTSB said in the report.
However, historical phone logs from Mr Huang’s phone found an “active gaming pattern” during the morning commute in the days before the accident, and data transfers in the minutes before the accident were “consistent with online gaming activity”. Huang’s family claims he left the game running passively on his phone to collect data.
Lawyers for the Huang family now say Tesla, with help from Apple, “tried to disprove this at the 11th hour,” submitting a statement from Apple engineer James Harding that said the The company determined that Hwang was actively gaming the company at the time of the crash. According to LinkedIn, Harding has worked at Apple for 18 years as the manager of “System Debugging Tools and Services.”
The historical mobile phone log of Mr. Huang’s mobile phone found “active game mode”
Lawyers representing the Huang family said that by submitting Harding’s testimony in the form of a statement rather than a deposition, Tesla and Apple were trying to “circumvent the discovery process.” They also slammed the companies for submitting Hardin’s statement five months after the investigation concluded, denying them the opportunity to question Apple managers before trial. Tesla plans to call Harding as a witness.
Lawyers for the Huang family have subpoenaed Apple, seeking more information about Harding’s claims. Last month, Apple filed an application to quash the subpoena, saying Huang was seeking “substantial amounts of Apple’s privileged material.”
“Apple is not a party to this case, has never appeared in court, and has not received any notice of an order related to the dispute,” the company’s attorneys argued in their application to quash the subpoena. “While Apple is prepared to cooperate in good faith with both parties and fulfill its obligations as an amicus witness, its obligations are currently unclear and it seeks guidance from the court.” (An Apple spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
“Apple is not a party to this case”
The trial is a major test of Tesla’s ongoing legal efforts to attribute crashes involving Autopilot to driver inattention. Tesla’s strategy has been successful in previous trials, avoiding culpability in at least two wrongful death lawsuits.
Huang’s case is shaping up to be a key test of that defense. Tesla insists that Autopilot is safe and only disables when the driver is distracted. But the Hwang family’s legal team plans to cite examples of Tesla’s own executives and engineers admitting to checking email while using Autopilot. Tesla has previously argued that some of these statements, including those from Elon Musk himself, should not be adopted because they could be deepfakes.